Film: The Silver Globe - Andrzej Zulawski - 1977/1987

I viewed Zulawski's "Na srebrnym globie" (The Silver Globe) a week ago and its haunting images are still reverberating through me.

Zulawski is like no other director I've ever come across. His films are masterworks of unrivaled intensity, often laying bare the deepest irrational spaces of the psyche. Purposeful absurdity and extreme emotional breakdown characterize nearly every frame. If I were to relate an image to this master, it would be like a peyote-crazed Shaman cursing the great void with all his being.

The Silver Globe is sadly an incomplete film. The Polish Ministry of Culture stopped the filming in the late 70s under the pretence of financial burden. Large sections of the film are missing, but have been filled in with Zulawski's own narration set to (quite bizarrely) footage of a bustling modern city. Fortunately, the bulk of the film has been pieced together from footage shot before filming was abandoned.

A short synopsis of the plot. A crew of 4 cosmonauts crashland on an earth-like planet in hopes of creating a new way of life that avoids mistakes made on earth. One dies early on, the other 3 set about procreating and eventually give birth to legion of primitive pseudo-tribal offspring. Time functions differently on this planet as birth to adulthood takes place with incredible rapidity. The original cosmonauts are worshipped by their children as gods from a legendary heaven called "Earth." Many years later, after the original explorers have died another "god" steps from a rocket. He is commissioned to lead the battle against evil bird creatures that live across the great ocean.

Religious allegory? Yes.
Political treatise? Perhaps.
Nearly 3 hours of insanity, panic, philosophical ranting, emotionally exhaustive beauty and horror? Most definitely.

How can one describe the experience of this film? Maddening, frustrating, hallucinatory, trance-inducing, enlightening, frightening, gorgeous... these are just a few adjectives that come to mind.

I can safely say there is really nothing else like it. Well, besides perhaps other Zulawski. Most of his films are notoriously hard to come by. The only other of his works I have seen (both of which I treasure dearly) are Possession and Diabel.

IMDB

Film: Hausu - 1977

Few films deserve a genuine "wtf" - this is one of them. In a good way.

Japanese Pee-wee's playhouse on visual overload set to a horror theme starring nubile schoolgirls. Or something closely resembling that.

Mind boggling, completely random, and wonderfully unique... to quote the crazed watermelon vendor- "they don't make em like they used to."

IMDB

First Post- What the hell am I doing?

I'm particularly bored this afternoon. I've decided to start a blog. No idea what direction it'll take, but I'll start with a running log of things noteworthy and interesting. Self-centered nostalgia rather than public consumption is its goal.

So to start things off, an interesting anime gem I found the other night. Usually I stay away from anime, unless it's ridiculously surreal or absurd. Animation is at its strongest in the realms of the fantastic. Theorizing best saved for another post, on to the film..

Shôjo tsubaki (aka Midori) - 1992 - Hiroshi Harada
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0930902/

This headtrip is set in the late 19th Century follows the fate of a pretty young girl, Midori. Leaving behind the rewards of sidewalk flower peddling and the rat-eaten corpse of her mother, she falls in with a traveling freak show. Amid the abuse and insanity she eventually finds true twisted love.

There really isn't much more to say about the plot, it's all pretty simple and trite. What makes the film noteworthy is the lovely jarring split of innocence and perversion. The animation style is early, often the story is told with static images and very sparse movement. This old-school stylization lends a certain beauty and melancholy glaze to the film, like you're watching an anime you vaguely remember from childhood. Disturbing images abound and the deviant eroticism of "naughty" anime shows up on occasion.

One more interesting thing is the cinematic history of this film. The director didn't allow passive consumption of his film, instead he staged events around its showing. The film traveled around Japan, along with a real freak show, and was apparently a totally interactive experience. In one account I read that the audience was led into a candle-lit cellar where the film was played in complete darkness, freaks hiding in the shadow throwing various scene-relevant objects at the audience (flower pedals, sand, etc). Apparently these performance-centered exhibitions were the only way Harada allowed the film to be seen, and DVD rights were withheld for a very long time.